A Lost Child of Gallifrey
by Dr. Colleen
Summary: Immediately after 10 sees Rose in 2005 for his goodbye/have a great year visit...but before he actually regenerates. Mainly because I haven't quite been able to jump on the Matt Smith bandwagon. Plus, I'd quite like to see him happy before he regenerates. Adventure...bit of hurt/comfort at the beginning. And friendship. PS Reviews appreciated for my first try at this genre! Cheers!
1. A Lost Child of Gallifrey

Chapter 1: A Lost Child of Gallifrey

It's freezing out...snow falling in the early hours of January 1st. Another ear has gone already and it's 2005. For the 20 years that Jane Doe know she's been living this miserable existence, so really only remembers the last decade. Before that...it's...fuzzy.

Now that would be a treat...a nice fuzzy blanket and somewhere warm. But after her appearance on the steps of the London, England orphanage steps ten years ago, she's led a mean life. Hard. Harder than most twenty year olds can stand. But she's nothing if not a survivor. Alone. It doesn't do to dwell on why she was left on the orphanage steps in 1995...whether she was orphaned or abandoned, she's alone in this world now. There's no one left to rely on, not since she left the orphanage behind. She's tried, time and again to make her way in this seemingly unrelenting world. The truth is, she's a bit odd. Bit of a loner. Bit of a mouse...not just in personality, but appearance. She's not pretty by anyone's standard. Her hair is limp and mouse brown, hiding most of her face in a lank curtain. Her eyes are gray, but dull-not prefaced by glamorous adjectives, such as 'stormy' or 'slate'. Her skin is sallow and faded...not once has she been called an English Rose or any other lovely name. Her body is thin and awkward, as though it considered puberty to be an unnecessary bother. She is utterly plain in every respect.

The universe, clearly conspiring against her, had not even seen fit to give her an extra dose of neural brilliance. She was unexceptional.

Unexceptional, but for her missing memory regarding her 10 formative years. Some form of traumatic amnesia, the doctors had all finally decided. As a child, they posited, she must have witnessed something so horrific that her brain simply refused to share it with the rest of the world.

It's a fair assumption, seeing as her appearance on the London Orphanage steps was sudden, silent, and covered in charred clothing. She was, for all intents and purposes, Munsch's Paperbag Princess, though it could hardly be claimed that she'd been singed by a dragon, or abandoned by Prince Ronald. Her only possession was a curiously decorated fob watch, which she refused to let the doctors examine. It was suggested that the watch might belong to the girl's father(likely deceased) and this gave rise to the rumour that she may have murdered her own family in their beds, maybe she had set the house on fire...scarcely escaping with her own life.

Her odd and plain and boring and dull and unexceptional status made it curiously difficult to obtain any semblance of gainful employment. She resigned herself to the contentious state of welfare, but choose to sleep in homeless shelters and halfway houses, over the tumultuous life of government assistance. She never begged, but occasionally stole, deciding she'd fare better in prison than throwing herself on the mercy of her fellow humans to provide pennies for a meal. She had never been caught in her acts of theft, somehow using her ability to blend in to the scenery in her subterfuge.

Her free time is spent in libraries, consuming all manner of literature-fiction or non. It is her one solace.

There are no libraries open on this early New Year's day, and she has been scouring the streets for a small warm spot that she might hide away in until morning.

She keeps to the shadows, and goes unnoticed by the two blond women who walk down the snow covered street. She looks along the otherwise empty street and notices a blue box...much like a telephone booth, nearly hidden by the shadows...if it were not for the warm orange light spilling out of it she might have walked right by. Just for a short while. She's so cold, she'll just stay an hour, shielded from the snow. She'd read about hypothermia at the library..it didn't sound much fun.

Pushing the door further open, she peeked inside. She covered her gasp with her hand. She was hallucinating...that much was clear. She'd read about that at the library too. She was have delusional thoughts right now. She, however, was far too cold to care...so what if she imagined the inside far surpassed any reasonable size that was indicted from the outside of this blue box?

Her delusions allowed her to keep walking through the door, closing it behind her. She continued up the ramp to the strange looking console in the middle. She peered around it and decided to venture further inside...as long as her delusion was going to sustain itself, she might as well be entertained by her hypothermia-amplified imagination. Following one of the metal grated ramps she found herself in a large room...something like a storage facility, or someone's eclectic attic. There was a desk pushed to the side, stacked with loose papers and books and bizarre objects. On the very top of the precariously stacked pile of books was a shiny new edition of a book entitled "A Journal of Impossible Things" by Verity Newman. A drawing of a fob watch was below the title. Her hallucination was vivid enough to incorporate the familiar, interesting...  
She picked the book up and dropped cross-legged to the floor, leaning against a musty pile of velvety material. She read...and read...her eyes speeding across the pages, a frown embedding itself into her brow. This journal was really about some impossible things: a man from the stars, indeed. There was no such thing as aliens...not in her experience! And yet...these things that were mentioned in the book...name ...Gallifrey...somewhere knitted in the back of her subconscious ...it resonated. She blinked. Of course, it was her hallucination, it would have to be something she had already read about. Perhaps it was a made up place from a book she'd read before...like Narnia or Middle Earth or Hogwart's. Of course. Of course.

Even in her delusions she could be reasonable.

So engrossed was she in her imaginary book, it wasn't until well after the snick of the door, that she realized she might not be alone. Who had come to share her delusion?

A growling whine...like a metal animal pierced the quiet. A plaintive, ancient yet mechanical sound swelled up around her. She cast the book aside and sprang to her feet, "Who's there?!" she shouted over the din

She felt the ground shaking beneath her feet. It all felt too real to be a hallucination, she raced out to the main room of her delusion and stopped suddenly when she caught sight of the wild-haired man in a suit and trench coat.

"I don't have any money!" she raised her hands demonstratively.

"What?"

"Sorry if this is your place for the night!" she continued, keeping her hands up to show she was not a threat to this well-dressed, if slightly rumpled, fellow transient.

"Sorry what?" he hadn't moved, but wore an expression of incomprehension. Perhaps he had run out of a medication he had been prescribed.

All thoughts of his intentions were halted when the ground began to move beneath their feet. It was an earthquake!

"Hold on to something!" she cried out to him

"Who are you?!"

"What?!" she looked at him incredulously. _How could he possibly consider that to be of any importance when they were clearly in the middle of an earthquake?!_

"How did you get in here?" he demanded.

"The door was open. I'm sorry. I was cold...and I just felt like I could-that's hardly the biggest problem at hand-we have to get out of here! Or-" she considered,"D'you imagine we're safer in here, what with the earthquake happening?" she braced herself against the console. "It's bigger on the inside...so perhaps it's stronger than it looks from the outside, do you reckon?" she looked at him desperately.

The wild haired man in the suit strode over to the his side of the console and fiddled with some knobs and buttons. The room took on a quality which made Jane think that they were floating. She snuffed a breath through her nose. "What's happened? What did you just do?"

"I...fixed...the earthquake."

Jane gave a little nod, and steadying her hand against the console, she began to make her way around to the other side. She dug her other hand into the pocket of her coat, fingers closing around the comfortingly familiar shape the old fob watch.

"Again, who are you?" the man took a step toward her. He was taller than she first realized.

"Jane."

"Is that like Madonna or Cher?"

"Jane Doe." she frowned.

"Right." he looked at her skeptically.

"So then who are you? If you fixed the earthquake, does that make you some sort of ...of...some sort of..."she gesticulated, "Wizard?"

"I prefer the name Time Lord." he said casually.

Jane blinked. _That name_. Like a stolen memory imprinted on the back of her brain. It was making her head spin.

"Are you alright? You look a bit peaky." the man narrowed his brown eyes at her.

"This is going to sound completely mad, but I don't think I'm quite right." Jane frowned at the ineloquence of her words. "Look, I didn't mean to end up in this Time Lord base. But I saw the light on and I thought I was going to pass out from the cold...I just came in here to rest a bit...but then I saw how big it was inside."

"That's just it, you aren't supposed to be able to get inside. How did you manage that?" the man was still looking at her with deep suspicion.

"Why's that?" Jane demanded in frustration, "I didn't trip any alarm that I know of and_ the door was open_."

"Well, I didn't leave the door of my TARDIS open and it doesn't just open to anyone, especially without a key." he insisted.

Jane blinked again. Hard. _TARDIS. _"Time And Relative Dimension In Space." she murmured softly, blinking again.

"What did you just say?" the man advanced on her.

"I don't know...I don't know!" she backed up quickly, her hip hitting the side of the console with a painful bump. She winced and blinked again, "I feel like I'm going insane." she said weakly.

The man withdrew what looked like a pen with a blue flashlight at its tip from inside his trench coat. He pointed it at her forehead, and it emitted a faint buzzing sound. She blinked rapidly, leaning back away from him against the console. "What are you-? What is that thing? What are you doing?"

"Just trying to get some readings from you to see if you're human or if yo-" the man stopped short.

Jane opened her eyes to see him pointing his blue flashlight at her hip. At her pocket. At her pocket where her watch was clutched in her fist. They stood frozen in a tableau for a moment.

"What," the man said with a breathlessly quiet tone, "is that you have in your pocket?"

"You can't have it." Jane gritted out firmly, clutching the watch tighter. "I don't care who you think you are or how big your TARDIS Base is...I'm not giving you my watch!"

She pushed herself off of the console and hurled herself towards the door.

"No!"

She heard a buzzing sound behind her and a snick of a lock. She fell against the door and rattled the handle. She wrenched it frantically with both hands, her heart pounding in her ears, "Let me out! You can't have my watch and you can't keep me here!"

She felt a hand on her shoulder and she felt herself being whirled around. The man pressed her back against the door, one hand pinning her shoulder and one hand pointing his flashlight at her face. _Maybe it's a weapon_, she thought frantically, adrenaline coursing through her veins. She flared her nostrils and glared ferociously up a her attacker.

"I'm not going to take your watch I just want to see it!" he demanded, looking more than slightly crazed.

"I wasn't born yesterday, I've heard that one before!" she shouted into his face, "Let me go!"

"Really, I just want to see it! Where did you get it? Why do you have it?"

"I've always had it," she found herself explaining to him, "I had it with me since I can remember-it was with me when I got to the orphanage."

"When?" he pressed her

"A decade ago."

"Who gave it to you?" he demanded.

"I dunno, my Dad? Whoever left me there? I don't know, I don't remember. I don't remember anything before that! I don't know! _I don't know!_ Why do you keep asking me?! I don't _KNOW_!" she let out a sob, sagging against the door. She felt so confused and this man as pestering her about questions that she never really asked herself before. How was she to know where she got the watch. It was hers and that was all there was to it. Who could know where it came from? The people at the orphanage said they didn't know where she had come from. She'd just appeared on their doorstep, smelling of ash and smoke and clutching the watch and completely shell-shocked. She hadn't even been able to tell them her name. They called her Jane Doe. At first it was because there was nothing else to call her, and then after a while, it was because that's what she began to respond to. She was alone. No one ever came back for her. She read about children being saved from orphanages. Anne of Green Gables had found the Cuthbert siblings, Orphan Annie was adopted by Daddy Warbucks. Pippi Longstockings had piles of gold at her disposal thanks to her absentee King father. Even Gilbert and Sullivan had written a whole musical about orphans who had turned into hapless pirates sailing around on adventures. But no one ever took _her _into their home. No one wanted the strange and mysterious girl who watched quietly from the sidelines of life. Perhaps she'd been too content to dream and wish and read about the fantastical life she might have had to bother with forging one of her own.

The man had released her, stepping back to stare at her tear-streaked face. She sniffled ashamedly, wiping her face on her sleeve, "Please, I just wanted somewhere warm to stay tonight. I've got nowhere to go..."

A pained grunt from the man drew her eyes up, away from her own pitiful state. She stared at him. He was gritting his teeth, hands balled in fists at his sides. For a second she thought he was going to take a swing at her.

"Let me see that watch." his voice was quiet, hollow, broken. She looked at him in puzzlement, dipping her hand into her pocket and withdrawing the old fob. "Sometimes..."she whispered, "Sometimes I think it's _talking_ to me..."she stretched her arm out to the man with the pained expression. His brown eyes were a mystery to Jane, holding secrets she couldn't even begin to fathom.

"It-it _can't_ be." he muttered, taking the watch in his hand and shining the buzzing blue flashlight on it. He looked at it like he'd seen it before.

Jane had never felt more uncertain about anything, he was too young to be her father, he barely looked 30. A brother, maybe? "Did _you_ give it to me? Do you know who could have-you recognize it, don't you?"

He looked back up at her. There was pain and confusion written all over his face, and the slightest glimmer of...hope? Jane's head hurt.

"Who am I?" she breathed.

The man clenched his jaw, "I can only tell you to open the watch."

_Of all the nonsensical, cryptic, steaming pile of useless advice to give someone-_Jane glared at the man.

But that was all there was time to think. Because the earthquake started again. The room rocked sideways and the man fell heavily on top of Jane, knocking the breath right out of her. She tried to wheeze for air, but before she could catch her breath, the room tumbled the other way and several loud crashes echoed throughout the chamber. Ass over tea kettle. Jane and the man pitched forward...or backward? It was hard to tell which way was even up anymore. Without her breath, Jane was finding it difficult to regain any sort of equilibrium. She felt like passing out and gagging up vomit all at once. The room rolled over several times, whirling them both like they were clothes in a tumble dryer. Jane cracked the back of her head on something metal and hard, possibly some sort of railing. There were explosions sounding from seemingly every direction and suddenly, violently, Jane felt like she was in her own memory. _Fire and explosions, glass shattering, the vile and choking smoke that was billowing over her._ Her eyes stung here and now from the acrid black, her lungs screamed for oxygen, and somehow she had felt this all before. It seemed to Jane that the only decent thing to do in a situation like this was lose consciousness altogether.

So she did.


	2. Regeneration

Chapter 2: Regeneration

_Jane. Jane. Jane. JANE. JANE!_

It was in her head, but she could hear it now too.

"Jane? Jane! Jane, can you hear me?!"

" 'M dead, not deaf..."Jane's voice sounded harsh and croaking to her own ears as she blinked her eyes open. She closed them. The light was too bright. Her eyeballs felt raw. She coughed once. Twice. Tasted burnt something on her tongue. Maybe it was her tongue. Maybe she was burning in Hell. She was dead, after all, so of course her tongue would taste burnt in Hell. She gagged at the thought of tasting crispy char in her mouth for the whole of eternity.

"Just open the watch Jane and you'll be fine. There's nothing I can do for you otherwise." the voice said.

"What can anyone do?" she croaked. She gagged and coughed the force of it jarring her body and sending a shockwave of pain that shook her body with excruciating pain until it reached her belly button. Funny thing, after that...after her belly button she couldn't feel pain. Strange that she would have a magical belly button in Hell to cancel out the pain. Although there was plenty of bits above her belly button that felt as though they might simply snap off of her body from the ripping pain that seemed to crackle under every nerve. She wanted to scream, but if coughing hurt that much, she could only imagine what screaming would-

"Jane, open the watch! Please, open it...open it. I don't know what you were running from but please, _please_!"

"Too loud-hurts ears," Jane's face crumpled, but the tears wouldn't come. Couldn't come. But the voice was crying for her. She could feel the drops on her face and they weren't coming from her own eyes...

Her eyelids fluttered open. Searing pain, but she kept them open...well, one of them, the other was fused shut. Like it had melted to her cheek. Everything was blurry, just shapes, "The watch..."

"Yes, yes, that's it! The watch, open the watch!" Relief in the voice now, a soft hiccoughing sound.

"Bossy..."she muttered.

"Yes, if it will save your life, I _will_ be bossy! OPEN THE WATCH!"

" 'Lready dead..."she reminded the voice.

"No, you're not. Open the watch."

"Too tired. Later..." the shapes were cloudier now. She just wanted to sleep. If Hell would let her.

"_NOW_!" No room for argument. There wouldn't be a moment's peace in Hell with this bossy demon shouting in her already ringing ear.

She moved her fingers stiffly, grabbing very nearly blindly for the watch. It was placed, cold, into her hand. She depressed the catch and the watch flipped open.

For a second it felt to Jane as though Time itself stood still.

Then...bombardment with images and words and voices and smells and sounds and feelings and memories and everything hit her body like the...like the crash of a TARDIS.

The crash of a TARDIS.

And clearer than anything since or before was the self-realization of a child of Gallifrey.

And pain. Pain that she'd long since forgotten, long since removed from her very memory, ripped through her body with a violent convulsion.

If she hadn't dared before, she did it now: she screamed. She burned. Every cell, every small particle, morphing, changing, reformatting, regenerating.

The pain of her cognizance and the brutal force of her Regeneration was so dually excruciating that she blacked out.

Again.


	3. The Watcher

Chapter 3: The Watcher

She woke. The man keeping watch by her side, a mildly bewildered look upon his face, looked up and relief spread across his mien like the breaking of a sunrise. "You're ok."

"A very loose term for what I just experienced." a sarcastic voice snorted.

No, not _a _sarcastic voice. _Her _voice. _Her own _voice. Different...yet familiar in the way that the sound had rippled from her own throat and she felt it.

"I suspect you might expect some sort of an explanation." she said dryly.

"You won't have to be as thorough as you might think under these circumstances." his reply was equally lacking moisture.

"'Of all the gin joints...'"She muttered, "And I walk into a TARDIS."

"Yes, about that-something knocked us out of orbit. And I would've checked before now, only you just finished the most horrific regeneration I've seen in a while and I didn't want to leave you to your own devices, lest you set everything ablaze. To be fair, you did, somewhat...but you hit me while you were thrashing and regenerating about and you stopped my own regeneration...which is rather a relief because-"

"Don't you ever shut up?" she said with a trace of amusement.

"How can I when I have so many unanswered questions? I mean, who are you? How are you? Where did you come from? WHEN, perhaps is the more appropriate answer..."

"In reverse, your answers are: Just after the Time War started. From Gallifrey. I'm fine, considering...and who are you, first?"

"I asked you first."

"And I asked you second." she jutted her chin.

"I'm the Doctor."

"...wait...THE Doctor?" she sat up quickly, wincing at the sudden change in altitude.

"...Yes." He sat back, distancing himself from her, frowning slightly, "Now who are you?"

In reply, all she could do was laugh. Raucously.

He was taken by surprise, "How is that funny? Why is that funny? When is that funny?"

But her laughter soon turned into sobs. Of pain, of fear, of panic, "You can't take me back! I won't let you take me back, Doctor!"

He blinked and shook his head suddenly, "I won't, I won't! I...I can't."

She had clasped her hands over her mouth to muffle her wails and she brushed away the tears from her cheeks quickly, "How do you mean, you can't? Your TARDIS is broken?" she waved her hand, looking around her, "Looks alright to me, you still have power. I can feel the hum of its heart."

"The Time War." The Doctor said slowly. "It's over. It's gone. They're gone. They're all gone. We're the very last ones left."

She blinked. An ache settled in the pit of her stomach. And she could feel the truth of his words. She would have felt them. She would have felt them where ever they were...but he was right. They weren't anywhere. They were nowhere. It was just two. She wrinkled her brow.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't stop it." he said softly, brokenly.

She nodded once, and sighed a deep sigh. "The very last of us. What a pair we make."

"What kind of pair? Who are you?" the Doctor pressed.

She waved her hand dismissively, "You don't know me, but I know you Doctor...oh the stories I heard before I left." she chuckled. "My secret dream was to travel with you one day." Her expression darkened, "But then the Time War came...and my sickness..."

"Sickness?" the Doctor leaned forward.

"I had looked into the Untempered Schism as we all do at the age of 8."she sighed, eyes looking off to remember, "And the sickness fell upon me shortly after. A weakness, they all said, for none had been ravaged as I had. It wasn't madness or fear...just weakness. And the only cure was Regeneration. None had done it so young, when had a child of Gallifrey every touched death for the first time so soon after Initiation?" she scoffed, "It was unheard of. None could help me, nothing could be done. I burned with shame and hate...I wanted to leave, run away...and the horror of the Time War spurred me to this end. I...stole...a TARDIS-as you did!" she said defensively, reminding him, "And ran. I ran to the place I had heard of the most in the tales told of you. I ran to Earth. But I knew they would find me and I used the Chameleon Arch while the TARDIS was still in flight. I crashed." she frowned.

The Doctor winced in sympathy.

"From my recollection of both my memories, my stolen TARDIS was destroyed. I named myself in spite of their lies of weakness. I am still a child of Gallifrey, still tasked to watch over Time itself, am I not?" her words were bitten with a scornful poison, "Am I not a Watcher as you and all others from our home planet claim to be?" she challenged.

"You are." The Doctor conceded, "So, that's your name? The Watcher? Your self-appointed name claims dominion over a purpose of the Time Lords?"

"Is it not fitting, my Lord Doctor?" she jutted her chin defying him to take her name.

"It is fitting." The Doctor agreed quickly, "But you named yourself after leaving Gallifrey...a name that is hidden from Time itself. Who were you before your new name?"

"Nameless, but for the name given to me." she replied stubbornly. A silent challenge for him to figure it out on his own.

"Shame is hidden on Gallifrey, no one would claim you as their own, even at the dawn of the Time War..."the Doctor muttered to himself, "One regeneration...and just after Initiation...but not on Gallifrey itself...on Earth. Oh! Come on, come on!" The Doctor was up and pacing, his fingers tangling in his hair, forcing it every which way.

"OH!" The Doctor shouted, twirling and pointing at her, "Oh! Oh, you clever, clever child!" he crowed.

She lay back smugly in her bed

"I had just regenerated for the 7th time when you were born!" he jabbed his finger in her direction, "They called you Serendipity, a child of the Visionary and the Lord President Rassilon! Oh ho ho! Yes, that's you, isn't it? The Watcher is Serendipity! And Serendipity is when you find something that you were not expecting to find! Well-named, Serendipity." The Doctor was very nearly gleeful with his deduction.

"Rather a mouthful, don't you agree?" she grimaced comically, "Might be simpler to stick with my human name."

"What-Jane Doe?" the Doctors eyebrows reached for his hairline.

"Maybe, just Jane." she considered.

"Just Jane, is it? Well then, Just Jane... do you suppose we should look out to see where we've landed?" The glee on the Doctor's face was back. And it was infectious.


	4. New World with New Eyes

Chapter 4: New World with New Eyes

Jane looked down at her charred clothing and wrinkled her brow, "Perhaps," she suggested, "We should consider a more fire retardant wardrobe before we impose ourselves of the rest of civilization?"

"Brilliant," the Doctor agreed.

"Just to be certain, though-I am alright now, aren't I?" Jane looked up at him uncertainly, "I only ask because this is just my second time regenerating...and you've got rather more experience at this than I have."

The Doctor pulled a stethoscope from the folds of his coat and went to work. He checked that both of her hearts were working. It had been so long since he'd felt that...the four heartbeats of his people. He nearly closed his eyes he felt so overwhelmed.

"Doctor?" Jane asked nervously.

"Sorry, just...it's been a while."

"I beg your pardon!" she slapped at his hands indignantly.

"Hold on, hold on, I didn't mean_ that_!" the Doctor protested, springing back defensively.

Jane glared at him half-heartedly, "Oh, that line is open to interpretation, is it?"

"Yes!" the Doctor huffed, "the sound of the Time Lords' heart beat...aside from my own, yours is the first I've heard in a while."

"Oh, alright," Jane grumbled, "We hardly know each other, of course you didn't mean...doesn't matter. Let me up, I'm going to find something fire-proof to wear." Jane shoved the blankets away and slid out of the bed and trudged across the room to find something decent and un-charred to put on.

As usual, and rather out of habit, Jane avoided her reflection as she browsed the Doctor's closet for appropriate apparel. The Doctor simply changed into a similar version of the suit he was wearing before and then watched as she selected clothes. Unlike the Doctor, Jane hadn't quite gotten used to regeneration, and he noticed that she was picking out clothes that would have fit her old body. Jane was no longer the faded waif he'd first met only hours ago, she looked far healthier; her face fuller-her whole body stronger, but with soft and delicately feminine curves. If the Doctor were to draw a comparison, he would pair Lady Christina as most similar in body type to this new version of Jane. Jane hadn't really investigated herself, aside from the initial finger and toe count(which the Doctor had insisted she perform-one could never be too careful with regeneration.) and hadn't seemed to notice that the faded grey t-shirt she had chosen for herself was not going to fit, at least not in the way she remembered. He kept silent, even when he wanted to chuckle at Jane's look of horror when she donned the shirt and stared at her bare mid-riff in mild confusion. Her solution to her wardrobe miscalculation was to dig a heavy black hooded sweatshirt from some musty (and probably slightly mouldy) old pile of rags and hide in its folds. The sweater nearly hung to her knees and she had to roll up the sleeves, though still managed to look like Harry Potter in his whale-sized cousin's hand-me-downs.

"Ok, ready to go." she announced after pulling on an abused pair of baggy dungarees.

The Doctor looked at her in disbelief, "Under no circumstances am I going to inflict you on the world wearing..._that_."

"What are you, Queer Eye for a Time Lady?"

"Not hardly," the Doctor snorted, "Though Captain Jack would be a help at this juncture."

"Who would what?" she made a face, "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

"You look like a homeless person."

"I _am_ a homeless person." Jane pointed out. "I haven't got a TARDIS, Gallifrey is gone, and there are no other colonies of Gallifrey anywhere in the universe. What do _you_ suggest I wear?"

The Doctor looked over at the pile of clothes he had idly collected while Jane was turning herself into one of the Seven Dwarves. He jerked a thumb in the mound's direction.

Jane snorted, "Not likely." she picked up the first item of clothing between her thumb and forefinger as though she might catch a horrible disease, "Pastel pink? What am I, an Easter Bunny?" She tossed the blouse onto the floor, followed by a floral print skirt, "Flowery flowers?"

"Right...so..."the Doctor burrowed into the pile, pulling out a handful of pieces of clothing and dumped the rest on the floor, "Here, take these and put them on...and there's probably some sort of appropriate female under garment in that armoire over there." he gestured towards the back of the room.

He pointedly ignored the rollercoaster display that Jane was imitating with her eyebrows, refusing to be embarrassed by his stockpile of ladies lingerie. Rocky Horror Picture Show was a big mainstream fashion craze at several points in human history and to avoid being pelted with toast, a Time Lord learned to dress the part. Jane stalked off with her new clothes, muttering darkly under her breath.

Moments later there was a loud shriek, followed by an equally loud crash, and a string of the most creatively multi-lingual curse words in the known universe.

"Is everything turning out alright back there?" the Doctor called innocently

"Just spiffing!" Jane barked back, "I was very nearly strangled by a murderous pair of stockings."

"Dangerous things, stockings." the Doctor nodded in grave agreement.

"I'd just as soon wear the coconut bra and grass skirt you've got back here than contort myself in one of these fashionably complicated torture devices!" Jane shouted at him, slightly muffled. "Or maybe you have a burlap sack hanging around that I could put to use?"

"How do you feel about a monocle?" the Doctor asked mildly, examining the elegant piece of eyewear he'd forgotten he even owned.

"Not favourable!"

"What about a nice wide sombrero?" he called out to her.

"Are you planning on taking me on a Mexican fiesta vacation?"

"Not right away..."the Doctor conceded

She paused, "Ascot, then?"

"Nope."

"Ow!"

"Are you sure you're alright?" he called, frowning again in concern.

"Well, I'm dressed, at least." her voice was coming closer. She shuffled back into sight.

"Put these boots on." he handed her a pair of riding boots. She slipped them on, tucking her pants into the knee high boots.

"Now, brush your hair and give the final approval in the mirror" the Doctor ordered, resting on his heels expectantly, arms crossed.

"You're just so bossy." Jane flipped her hair back, it longer than she was used to, thicker and with a slight curl to it, too. She twirled a strand around her finger, examining it under the light. It's darker and richer than her previous shade. She glanced back at the Doctor, it was darker even than his...but not black. It was the kind of hair she'd wanted when she was mousy and meek. It was the kind of hair that a confident woman would have, she mused silently to herself as she carded her fingers through the long silky strands.

"Shall I leave you alone then?" the Doctor cocked his head to the side.

She gave him a half smile. "Maybe just a moment before I look at myself in the mirror, would you?"

The Doctor's eyebrows rose, but he nodded and backed out of the closet room.

Jane took the brush from the small chest of drawers and began to run it through her hair. After losing count of the strokes and feeling her hair crackle with static electricity, she set the brush down and walked over to the floor length mirror. She took a deep breath and slowly drew her eyes to her reflection.

She gasped, looking at herself in the mirror.

"What is it?" the Doctor ducked his head into the closet.

"Well, it's just—"she pointed to herself weakly in the mirror, "It's just like that Earth folk tale, isn't it?"

"You're gonna have to be a bit more specific." The Doctor cocked his head. "'Mirror, mirror on the wall?' That one?"

Jane laughed, "No, the one with the swan and the ugly duckling that it used to be—are you familiar with that one?"

"I am, indeed." The Doctor tried not to smile, biting the inside of his cheeks.

"Of course, there's also that other old Earth fable about the human so enamoured by his own appearance that he drowned in the river after he tried to kiss himself." Jane said in consideration, "Human stories often paint humans as being indomitably stupid, don't they?"

"Narcissus…I believe the story was about Narcissus. And yes, but I think they do that so they stories have an obvious lesson to be learned." The Doctor pointed out.

"'Don't try to kiss your own reflection if you don't know how to swim'?" Jane suggested cheekily.

"No, I think the lesson is that 'being beautiful don't make you brilliant'," the Doctor shot back.

"Ha! No, it's 'never have your friends around when you do something stupid because they'll leave you to drown and then tell the story about your stupidity after you're dead'!" Jane laughed.

"Or 'choose your friends wisely'!" the Doctor chortled.

"Have you heard the one where a little girl breaks into the home of a family of bears and proceeds to eat their food and break their furniture?" Jane wheezed in laughter.

"Or-or!" the Doctor pointed, "the one about the children who drop all of their food on the ground and then become termites to eat an old lady's house, after which she cannibalizes them for her own lunch?" he threw his head back and guffawed at the ridiculous picture his words painted.

Jane clutched her sides in laughter, face red with giggles. "Oh, Doctor, stop! I can't laugh anymore!" she gasped.

It took them a while before they settled down, and their giggles only came if they looked at each other. Finally, with the occasional snicker, Jane brushed her hair back from her face and peered once more into the mirror. She stared disbelievingly at her reflection. Frowned a little in awe and turned away.

"What is it?" the Doctor's eyes were still crinkled happily at the edges.

Jane glanced once more over her shoulder, "I look so different."

"Ah yes, the mystery of regeneration."

"No, it's not just that," a line appeared between Jane's new dark eyebrows, "I've never been pretty before."

"Let's have a look at you then," the Doctor reached forward and spun her around. Her hair unfurled behind her and she laughed. She stopped, breathless, in front of him. He held her hands and gave her a look up and down. Her long hair cascaded down to the middle of her back in graceful thick chestnut waves, a striking contrast to her lovely peaches and cream complexion. She was wearing the clothes he had chosen for her. A pair of dark wash jeans tucked into her riding boots and a long sleeved, scooped neck, thin-knit sweater that matched her eyes.

"Your eyes are TARDIS blue." he said quietly. And he was correct, a deep blue iris, turned up just slightly at the outside, giving her an elegant feline quality and fringed with dark feathery eyelashes, frame by dark sculpted eyebrows. Her nose was straight and did not turn up at the end, and her mouth had a sensual quality which seemed play coy with a knowing smile. Her teeth were straight and white, the bone structure of her face was perfectly married to the rest of her womanly features, not too harsh and yet, defined. The Doctor realized he was waxing poetic in his head a little, but she was _glorious _to gaze upon.

"Why, Doctor!" Jane ducked her head and affected what could only be described as a terrible Scarlett O'Hara southern belle accent, "You do know how to turn a girl's head!"

"Now, stop it. Stop your embarrassment, you're lovely." The Doctor chided.

"I don't think I'll ever tire of hearing that." a light blush coloured her cheeks and she squeezed his hands in her, "Let's explore the universe, shall we?"

"Allons-y!" the Doctor agreed and led her to the door, pushing it open.

Uncharacteristically, the Doctor was quite silent as they gazed out the door of the TARDIS. They were back on Earth, not quite _when_ they'd left. The Doctor held out his hand to Jane, who accepted it and stepped into the spring day with her fellow Gallifreyan.

"It's all so new and bizarre, isn't it?"

"What's that?" the Doctor looked at Jane curiously.

"Looking at new worlds with new eyes…"a small smile spread across her face.

A glitter of happiness glinted at the corner of the Doctor's eyes, "So it is."


End file.
